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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



One American's Opinion of the 
European War 



One American's 
Opinion of the 
European War 



An Answer to 
Germany's Appeals 



By 

Frederick W. Whitridge 



NEW YORK 

EP-DUTTON & COMPANY 

PUBUSHERS 



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Copyright, 19 14 

BY 

E. P. BUTTON & CO. 



OCT 30 ibl4 

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©Cl,A38817a 



PREFACE 

IN the present great European 
conflict the United States is 
neutral, and under any circum- 
stances of which I can conceive, 
it ought to, and will, remain neu- 
tral. Why, therefore, the sym- 
pathies and the opinions of Amer- 
ica should be of importance to 
any of the contestants, I do not 
understand. I am informed, how- 
ever, that the German Government 
has established here a very per- 
sistent, expensive, and, of cotuse, 
efflcient Publicity Department, 



VI PREFACE 

which is appealing to Americans 
for their sympathy and endeavor- 
ing to make them believe a number 
of things which at present they do 
not believe at all. If those en- 
deavors are worth while, it is 
equally worth while to let that 
Publicity Department — together 
with the few, more or less American 
busybodies, whom it has beguiled 
with a promise of the limelight — 
know that in the judgment of at 
least one man a very great major- 
ity of the people of this country 
feel that the kind of civilization 
under which they were born and 
have been brought up, has been 
put in peril by a wanton breach 
of the peace of the world by the 
German Empire. Bernhardi de- 



PREFACE Vll 

clared that the struggle is for 
German world-power or downfall. 
If that be the issue, we are in favor 
of the downfall. 

The same miHtary philosopher 
says: "The American plutocrats 
have no notion that the widening 
development of mankind has quite 
other concerns than material pros- 
perity, commerce, and money- 
making." But ''the widening 
development of mankind" means 
not only those things, but it 
means that more and more himian 
beings shall have freedom to de- 
velop their own souls without 
government restraint or assistance, 
and it also means that a military 
autocracy, or a comparatively 
small number of people, intoxi- 



Vlll PREFACE 

cated by the magnitude of their 
own power, under any other name, 
shall have less and less freedom 
to impose upon us the primeval 
law of the strongest. 

F. W. W. 



Contents 



PAGE 



Observations on the War . i 
The Responsibility for the War 4 
Germany's Self-Deception . 9 
Mercenaries . . . .19 
Germans Then and Now . . 25 
Scraps of Paper . . .42 
Examples of German " Culture " 46 
The Appeals to America . . 57 
Germany and Colonial Empire 65 
America's Reply to the Appeals 77 



zi 



One American's Opinion of the 
European War 



Observations on the War. 



■pOR many years certain German 
publicists have been writing 
about ''a day of reckoning with 
England.** They have not been 
very explicit about the account 
on which the reckoning was to be 
had, but generally the day of 
reckoning was that upon which it 
was to be decided whether many 
desirable things in the possession 
of England should be taken away 
and made German. For nearly 
as many years also the youth of 



2 OBSERVATIONS ON THE WAR 

Germany, especially in the navy, 
have been drinking to the toast 
of "The Day." 

''The Day'* has at last come, 
and brought with it the most 
gigantic and the most wicked war 
of the whole Christian era. Eigh- 
teen million men or more, in the 
flower of their age, are striving 
to kill one another, the war is on 
land and sea, under the face of the 
waters, and from the heavens 

"There rained a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling 
in the central blue." 

To us, behind the insurmountable 
barrier of the ocean, "The Day'* 
seems to be the very Dies Irae — a 
day of wrath and doom, and the 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE WAR 3 

civilization mankind has been for 
three hundred years so laboriously 
building, like the ants or the coral 
insects, appears to be crumbling 
into ashes. As the misery, the 
bestiality, and desolation of that 
''Day" become apparent, there is 
a general appeal to public opinion 
by all the contestants to divest 
themselves of responsibility for its 
horrors. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR 
THE WAR 

Germany has made an elaborate 
formal statement of its position. 
England and Russia have published 
in full the correspondence leading 
up to the war, and from German 
sources or from the friends of 
Germany, many appeals have been 
made for the sympathy and ap- 
proval of America. Professors 
have appealed to the universities, 
clergymen to the churches; the 
professional German-Americans to 
everybody, and amongst many 

4 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 5 

others, one pamphlet with no less a 
title than "Truth,'* has been issued 
over the signature of Herr Ballin 
of the Hamburg-American Steam- 
ship Company, Prince Biilow, and 
a number of important names, to 
the countrymen of Washington 
and Lincoln. 

It might be a sufficient answer 
to all of these appeals to point out 
that the Triple Alliance was, by 
its terms, for defensive purposes, 
and Italy, the third member of 
the Alliance, when appealed to by 
the others, replied : ''But you have 
not been attacked. You have 
taken the initiative, and, therefore, 
we are absolved from our con- 
tract. " Or else to say with the 
New York Times of Sunday, the 



6 RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 

27th of September, which has 
published and weighed all the 
correspondence and evidence: 

■ ''The case is quite too plain for 
further argument. We trust that 
our German friends, should they 
persevere in their endeavors to 
conciliate American public opinion, 
will at least refrain from further 
affronts to our intelligence by the 
reiteration of the charge that Eng- 
land is responsible for the war, or 
that Russia began the war on 
Germany in pursuance of her pan- 
Slavic designs/' 

I believe the Times is right. I 
do not think you could empanel a 
jury in the United States — outside 
of Hoboken or Milwaukee — which 
would not find that Germany 



RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 7 

began this war, and that England 
went into it only upon the appeal 
of King Albert of Belgium to King 
George to protect the neutrality of 
Belgium. 

It is as clear to me as the day- 
light that the invasion of the 
neutrality of Belgium was the 
proximate cause of the war, at 
least with Great Britain, and there 
is a sufficient amount of evidence 
to make it equally clear that 
Germany had long been preparing 
for the war, and intended to have 
it at about this time, before even 
the particular pretext for it was 
found. I know of four cases 
during the month of July in 
which orders were given in pre- 
paration for war, and the view 



8 RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 

SO earnestly pressed in Germany 
that the three Powers fell upon 
Germany without warning is an 
idle tale. 



GERMANY'S SELF-DECEPTION 

What IS not clear is, how Ger- 
many allowed herself to be so 
grievously deceived as to the status 
of those she was about to make her 
enemies, the British Empire in 
particular, and as to the manner 
in which her violation of Belgium's 
neutrality would be appraised by 
the world. She apparently be- 
lieved that the French army was in 
as bad a way as an orator in the 
French Chamber declared it to be. 
The issue has almost proved the 
orator to be wrong. She believed 

9 



10 Germany's self-deception 



the reorganization of the Russian 
army could not be completed for 
another two years. She believed 
that there would be civil war in 
Ireland within six weeks, that 
there would be rebellions in India 
and Egypt, that South Africa 
would rush to her with open arms, 
and that Great Britain would 
never voluntarily fight, if at all. 

What has happened ? The 
French army seems to be in good 
form, the Russians appear to have 
an abundance of troops, and in 
England John Redmond has sung 
''God save the King" at West- 
minister, and is now telling his 
constituents in the south of Ireland 
that he had promised the Arch- 
bishop of Malines that the Irish 



GERMANY S SELF-DECEPTION II 

would come in their thousands to 
avenge the destruction of cathe- 
drals, churches, the shooting of 
priests, and the sack and ruin of 
Belgian towns. In India, seven 
hundred princes have offered to 
the Imperial Government their 
armies, their jewels, and contribu- 
tions of money ranging up to 
£300,000. In Egypt, there has 
hardly been a mutter. In South 
Africa, General Botha, the Prime 
Minister, declared that while the 
Boers had had their differences 
with Great Britain, the latter had 
kept faith with South Africa, and 
anyway the South Africans would 
ten times rather be under the 
British, than under the German, 
flag. General Smuts echoed Gen- 



12 Germany's self-deception 

eral Botha, and three or four 
former Boer generals have volun- 
teered to serve under French and 
Kitchener. It was not to be ex- 
pected that the opinion of the 
people would be unanimous as was 
that of their South African Par- 
liament, and Germany has actu- 
ally been able to foment an unim- 
portant opposition. On this record 
Germany must obviously have 
been very badly served by her own 
Ambassadors and Ministers, or 
else she must be under an obsession 
about her own grandeur and pop- 
ularity to make such a series of 
egregious blunders. 

In 1870, Mr. Gladstone's Gov- 
ernment made the same inquiries 
of Prince Bismarck which Sir 



GERMANY S SELF-DECEPTION 1 3 

Edward Grey made this year of 
Bethmann-Hollweg and of the 
French Government about the 
Belgian treaty, but Sir Edward 
got an entirely different answer 
from Germany from that Prince 
Bismarck gave to Mr. Gladstone. 
Mr. Asquith at Edinburgh, on 
September 17th, thus stated the 
British attitude. ''In 1793," he 
said Wm. Pitt announced: "Eng- 
land will never consent that an- 
other country should arrogate the 
power of annulling at her pleasure 
the political system of Europe 
established by solemn treaties and 
guaranteed by the consent of the 
Powers." He went on to say: 
"This House" — the House of Com- 
mons — * ' means substantial good 



14 Germany's self-deception 

faith to its engagements. If it re- 
tains a just sense of the solemn faith 
of treaties it must show a deter- 
mination to support them, but I 
come down to 1870 when this very 
treaty to which we are parties no 
less than Germany, and which 
guarantees the integrity and inde- 
pendence of Belgium, was threat- 
ened. Mr. Gladstone was then 
Prime Minister of this country, 
and he was, if possible, a stronger 
and more ardent advocate of peace 
even than Mr. Pitt himself. Mr. 
Gladstone, pacific as he was, felt so 
strongly the sanctity of our obliga- 
tions that — though here again we 
had no direct interest of any kind 
at stake — he made arrangements 
with France and Prussia to co- 



Germany's self-deception 15 

operate with either of the belHger- 
ents if the other violated Belgian 
territory. In a speech ten years 
later, delivered in 1880 in the city 
of Edinburgh, Mr. Gladstone him- 
self reviewed that transaction and 
explained his reasons for it. He 
said this : ' If we had gone to war * 
— which he was prepared to do — 
'we should have gone to war for 
freedom. We should have gone 
to war for public right, we should 
have gone to war to save himian 
happiness from being invaded by 
a tyrannous and lawless Power. 
That,' Mr. Gladstone said, 'is 
what I call a good cause, gentlemen, 
though I detest war, and there 
are no epithets too strong, if you 
will supply me with them, that I 



1 6 Germany's self-deception 

will not endeavor to heap upon its 
head.'" 

The German reply to every such 
statement of Mr. Asquith's is, That 
is all humbug, hypocrisy, and cant ! 
The English are fighting us from 
envy and for their own interest and 
are lying about their motives. 
Well, suppose that to be so, would 
anybody but a nincompoop, as 
M. Hanotaux pleasantly calls the 
German diplomatist, have given 
the English such a magnificent 
pretext for concealing their motive 
as the German repudiation of the 
Belgian treaty has afforded them? 

Suppose the Germans had this 
year followed the same course as 
that of Prince Bismarck in 1870, 
and France had been invaded as 



GERMANY S SELF-DECEPTION 1 7 

it was in that year by the way of 
Alsace and Lorraine, the Germans 
would by this time have been as 
far advanced into France as they 
are now, they would have come 
with clean hands, they would have 
escaped the losses they have suf- 
fered at the hands of the Belgians, 
they probably would not have had 
England on their hands or else its 
hypocrisy and cant would have 
been unmasked, and they would 
not have lost every friend they 
had. What can we think of such 
diplomacy? And as if they had 
not made blunder enough the 
Germans have now made the cap- 
ital mistake of utterly despising 
their adversaries. The Emperor 
himself within twelve months has 



1 8 Germany's self-deception 

said, waving his arm through the 
air: *'We shall go through Bel- 
gium like that." He did not, 
and the Germans have lavished 
contempt upon the little English 
army, and have wound up by 
denouncing it as made up of mer- 
cenaries, an expression I have 
heard repeated by their sympa- 
thizers in this country. 



MERCENARIES 

Mercenaries ! Why, my friends, 
you do not know what the word 
means. The Germans furnished 
indeed the principal mercenary 
soldiery during the middle ages, 
but the last mercenaries I have 
heard of were the Swiss Guard of 
Louis XVI whose glory is per- 
petuated by Thorwaldsen's Lion 
at Lucerne, and the Hessians, some 
thousands of whom came to this 
country to assist George III in 
suppressing the American Revolu- 
tion. They did no credit to them- 
19 



20 MERCENARIES 

selves, to the Prince who sold 
them, or the King who bought 
them. The very name Hessian 
has become a word of reproach in 
the United States. I have even 
heard of it being applied by Tam- 
many leaders to the editors of 
German newspapers who were ne- 
gotiating with them for the deliv- 
ery of the German- American vote. 
Let me recall to those gentlemen, 
by the way, a remark of the 
Kaiser* s for which we should all 
be grateful to him; he said: 
"Germans, I know, Americans I 
know, German-Americans I do 
not know. '* What conceivable re- 
lation have such mercenaries either 
to the compulsory army of Ger- 
many or the volunteer army of 



MERCENARIES 21 

Great Britain, and what ethical 
difference can there be between 
the soldiers who serve their own 
countries for a pittance a day 
because they have to, and others 
because they wish to ? Such errors 
of judgment and of fact show they 
no longer read Schiller in the 
Wilhelm Strasse, or have for- 
gotten his famous line, ''Mit der 
Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst 
vergebens. '* 

There is, however, a funda- 
mental difference between the two 
armies. The German soldier is a 
cog in a vast machine; he is 
spoken of and treated oftentimes 
as mere Kanonen f utter. His offi- 
cers form a caste by themselves 
and behave as if they were of 



22 MERCENARIES 

different clay from their men. 
There are many instances in this 
war when, after officers were cap- 
tured, they complained bitterly 
when they were put in the same 
railway carriages or in the same 
hospital quarters, or were given 
the same food as their own men. 

The English soldier is an individ- 
ual. There is a certain camara- 
derie between him and his officers 
born of the universal love of sports 
and its attendant democracy in 
the cricket and playing fields of 
every village and town in the 
United Kingdom. Father Molloy, 
a priest who has been serving as 
chaplain with part of the British 
forces and who crossed the ocean 
with me the other day, said: 



MERCENARIES 23 

"General French, no matter 
how hard he had to fight during 
the day, always tried to spend 
a little time in the field hospital 
at night with the wounded. He 
would stroll in, sometimes accom- 
panied by an orderly, but many 
times alone. He would ask the 
wounded how they were getting 
on, and in the case of chaps shot 
through their legs, would slap 
them on the back and say: 'Fine 
business, old boy. You'll get him 
next time. How soon will you 
be out and back with us?' 

*'And sometimes the General 
would stay too long and realize 
that he could not get back to 
headquarters that night. Then 
he would wrap a blanket aroimd 



24 MERCENARIES 

him and curl up on a vacant cot or 
on the floor alongside a wounded 
'Tommy* and go to sleep. I tell 
you, every British soldier is strong 
for Sir John French — a real man 
as well as a soldier. '' 

That is the human touch which 
makes men invincible. I can im- 
agine the same thing might have 
happened with one of the generals 
of the Great Frederick, but what 
German general of this generation 
would so demean himself? 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

In these observations about Ger- 
many, England, and the war, I 
venture to believe, with at least 
as much modesty as the professors 
and the publicists who are appeal- 
ing to the sympathy of America, 
that I know something about the 
subject under discussion. I once 
lived in Germany, and passed two 
of the happiest years of my life 
in that country. I have traveled 
all over it. I sat at the feet of 
Treitschke when he was less bitter 
than his infirmities subsequently 
25 



26 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

made him. I have known Ger- 
mans of every class, from the top 
down. I found them all and more 
than all that General Bernhardi 
now says they ought not to be. 
They were peaceable, simple, and 
friendly. Their knowledge, their 
industry, and economy were revel- 
ations to me. I saw in the Ger- 
man army a great and necessary 
means of education, and when I 
came home it was with great 
respect for the administration of 
the German Government, and a 
deep affection for the German 
people. I have watched their de- 
velopment for many years since 
then with admiration, and their 
competition with the English with 
a certain amusement, because they 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 27 

waked up my English friends when 
they did not wish to be awakened. 
After a good many years I went 
back to Germany for a visit and 
one of the first things which 
struck me was numerous gigantic 
national statues which were hide- 
ous, and which literally defiled 
the earth everywhere, and when I 
asked why such monstrosities were 
permitted, the answer was, "Man 
muss Stolz sein. " Finally, when 
I came upon the monument to the 
old Emperor, between the old 
Castle in Berlin and the River 
Spree, I said to myself: ''I must 
have been asleep. This thing 
could not be tolerated by people 
who had any sense of beauty, of 
perspective, or proportion. This 



28 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

cannot be Berlin and Imperial 
Germany. It must be only some 
Greater Pirnipernickel. ' * In every 
direction there were evidences of 
a great change in the cities and in 
the people. The urban communi- 
ties as a whole were wonderfully 
improved, and the cleanliness and 
orderliness of everything were very 
remarkable. The country had 
grown rich, and enjoyed a great 
and visible prosperity. Berlin had 
grown faster than any American 
city — even in Hinter Pommern I 
believe they were making money. 
The demeanor and talk of the 
people had changed as much as 
everything else; the old simplicity 
and modesty had disappeared, 
there was a good deal of talk about 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 29 

abominable scandals in high so- 
ciety, and generally the people 
were exhibiting the worst vices of 
a raw plutocracy. 

The English '' milords'* with 
Waterloo on their lips used to be the 
most offensive people in Europe. 
They were ousted by the Ameri- 
cans with their vulgar extrava- 
gance and their ignorant compari- 
sons of everything they thought 
they saw, with what they remem- 
bered in ''God's own country." 
But during the past decade the 
Germans have become easily the 
most objectionable people to be 
seen in the inns and on the high- 
ways of the Continent. Mr. Price 
Collier called them the "boors of 
Europe," to the intense displeas- 



30 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

tire of the Berlin press, when he 
appeared at Court functions at the 
head of the Linden. This change 
in the mental attitude of the 
people was especially noticeable 
in respect to England. It is fre- 
quently said here and elsewhere 
that it is the Kaiser himself who 
has made this war, or that he 
could have prevented it. I do not 
think those who make that charge 
have any conception of the state 
of mind of the people behind him 
and his advisers. The Germans 
used to have rather a friendly feel- 
ing for Great Britain: they ad- 
mired her and thought of her as 
their former ally and friend, 
though the late Crown Princess, 
the present Emperor's mother, 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 3 1 

did a good deal to make England 
disliked, — but the German com- 
mercial and working classes liave 
not even now desired war, for 
many practical reasons, but under- 
neath the peaceable and friendly 
surface which they presented, there 
lay a deep and general feeling 
against England. It is not the 
individual Englishman whom Ger- 
mans dislike, but England as a 
Power; they despise her as they 
do all other nations except perhaps 
America, which they fear as a 
commercial rival. The German 
writers on the war since it has 
begun all say that England is 
jealous of Germany, and therefore 
seized the opportunity to attack 
her, but in all my conversations 



32 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

with Germans, I have found the 
reverse to be true. I have noticed 
a curious mixture of envy and 
contempt for England — envy be- 
cause the EngHsh have certain 
amenities of life which every Ger- 
man copies as fast as he can; and 
contempt, for which I have never 
heard any better reason than that, 
as they look at it, English officers 
are ashamed of their uniforms, and 
get out of them and into civil dress 
as soon as they can. On the other 
hand, there is a good deal of 
annoyance among the English with 
the Germans because they have 
been hustled by the Germans in 
business, which is probably good 
for them; but as for being jealous 
of the Germans, I cannot imagine 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 33 

an Englishman who would not say : 
*' Jealous of the Germans! Why 
on earth should we be?" 

The Germans, however, really 
believed that England was worn 
out politically, commercially, and 
on the sea, and that its army was 
negligible. This feeling has occa- 
sionally blazed up during the last 
twenty years, as at the time of the 
Kaiser's telegram to Kriiger during 
the Boer War, at the time of the 
Algeciras conference, and during 
the Morocco crisis. The Kaiser 
himself has been accused of being 
too friendly with England, and 
now that all this smoldering envy, 
dislike, and even hate have kindled 
into the red flame of war, the Gov- 
emment, the public, and the press 



34 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

have let themselves go indeed. 
The Kaiser is reported as say- 
ing, ''It is my royal and im- 
perial will that General French's 
contemptible little English army 
shall first be crushed," and 
the Hamburger Nachrichten, Bis- 
marck's old organ, said on 
August 28th: 

"We have taken the field against 
Russia and France, but at the 
bottom it is England we are fight- 
ing everywhere. We must prove 
to Russia the superiority of our 
culture and of our military might. 
We must force France on her 
knees until she chokes. It is not 
yet time to offer terms. But be- 
tween Russia and Germany there 
is no insoluble problem. France, 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 35 

too, fights chiefly for honor's sake. 
It is from England we must 
wring the uttermost price for 
this gigantic struggle, however 
dearly others may have to pay 
for the help they have given 
her." 

That is the note which runs 
through the whole German 
press — that is "die letzte imd 
grosste Abrechnung — ^mit Eng- 
land." 

The origin of these changes in 
the mind of the German people, 
and the ultimate causes of the 
war itself, I will not undertake to 
discuss. The differing national 
ideals, the racial antipathies, the 
fundamental differences between 
German and English civilizations 



36 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

are subjects too vast for just con- 
siderations within the limits of 
this paper. Whether the war was 
brought on at this time for the 
love of war for war's own sake, 
and was the mere effervescence of 
arrogance on the part of the 
military hierarchy; whether it is 
the Prussian desire for greater 
influence or more power which 
filled Prince Hohenlohe with ap- 
prehension about the future of the 
Empire whenever he found himself, 
as he said, among *' their Prussian 
Excellencies"; whether it is the 
Pan-Germanic propaganda which 
means nothing less than the domi- 
nation of the world, or at least of 
Europe, by the Germanic race; 
whether it, as has been charged, 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 37 

has been hastened by the great 
financial interests under the leader- 
ship of Gwinner, Tyssen, Rath- 
enau, and others for their own 
patriotic purposes; or whether, 
finally, it was Nietzsche's philoso- 
phy, or all these causes together, 
I will not venture to say. An 
answer can be found in Bern- 
hardi's book, Germany and the 
Next War; in Professor Cramb's 
admirable reply, entitled Germany 
and England; and in the numerous 
works of Pan-Germanism, of which 
Professor Usher's is the most fa- 
miliar to us. 

The cause which has certainly 
colored all the others is Nietzsche's 
philosophy of which an American 
scholar says: 



38 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

''The German war personality 
is Nietzsche — based on a phi- 
losophy which has taken a deeper 
hold on the German mind than any 
other since Hegel. Nietzsche wor- 
shipped power. His ethics were: 
* Do, be, get everything you have 
the strength to do. Pity is a vice. 
Evolution means the survival of 
the fittest and the destruction of 
the unfit. Christianity with its 
sympathy for the poor in spirit 
means decadence, was a disease. 
The world belongs to those who 
have the might to get it, and 
treaties, peace pacts, arbitrations, 
are mere points of strategy to 
mislead other nations, and when 
the grim reality of war comes 
they all vanish and are forgotten. 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 39 

"'Indeed, sympathy with the 
weak, the suffering, and the power 
of pathos are themselves weak- 
nesses, and might is the ultimate 
proof of right. The world be- 
longs to those who can get it, 
and those who have broken 
through to these supermorals have 
the world that believes in the 
old-fashioned virtues at their 
mercy.*'" 

Whatever the causes, the war 
has come, its horrors are appar- 
ent, and the spirit with which 
Germany entered upon it is, I 
believe, fairly expressed by the 
Lokalanzeiger, of Berlin, on Au- 
gust 3d. It said: 

"We begin to-day the final fight 

» President Stanley Hall, of Worcester. 



40 GERMANS THEN AND NOW 

which shall settle forever our great 
position in the world, which we 
have never misused, and when the 
German sword glides again into its 
scabbard everything that we hope 
and wish will be consummated. 
We shall stand before the world 
as the mightiest nation, which will 
then, at last, be in a position, with 
its moderation and forbearance, 
to give to the world forever those 
things for which it has never ceased 
to strive — Peace, Enlightenment, 
and Prosperity,'* 

Now, that is what we call very 
tall talk, which we do not much 
care to hear from other people, and 
when the Germans ask for sym- 
pathy in these United States, I 
venture to assert that they will get 



GERMANS THEN AND NOW 4 1 

precious little of it, because we are 
essentially a business people, a 
civil and kindly people, and be- 
cause we are not a cruel people. 



SCRAPS OF PAPER 

When the German Chancellor 
angrily called the Belgian treaty 
"a scrap of paper," which must 
be disregarded because Germany 
was in a hurry and because it was 
necessary for the German armies 
to go through Belgium in order to 
save time, the New York World 
replied magnificently: "So was 
Magna Charta a scrap of paper; 
the Bill of Rights, the Decla- 
ration of Independence, the Con- 
stitution of the United States were 
all scraps of paper, and if there is 
42 



SCRAPS OF PAPER 43 

no faith or honor in the world, that 
is all they are still." But we do 
not believe it. The capacity to 
make contracts and enforce them 
is one of the corner-stones of our 
civilization, and one of the marks 
of an honorable man is the way in 
which he lives up to his contracts. 
Perhaps the Chancellor would like 
to know how his views are looked 
at practically in this country. I 
happen to know of a bank in this 
city, where the majority of direc- 
tors have German names, or are 
of German birth. At first, their 
sympathies were all with the 
Fatherland, but when Sir Edward 
Goschen's account of his last inter- 
view with the Chancellor was 
published, they said to each other: 



44 SCRAPS OF PAPER 

''Why, Germany signed the treaty. 
It is like a promissory note. Are 
they going back on it?" So with 
some of the early German war 
measures. The Government com- 
mandeered all the savings-bank de- 
posits of their own people, because, 
as they said, the money having 
been saved, the people could most 
easily part with it; and many 
German merchants have written, 
presumably by order, to their 
creditors abroad, that they could 
not pay their debts, but that they 
had subscribed to the German 
war loan in the names of their 
creditors for the amount of their 
debts, which they hoped would be 
satisfactory, and if it was not, they 
would decline, after the war was 



SCRAPS OF PAPER 45 

over, to have anything to do with 
the creditors who objected to this 
method of payment. Things of 
that sort shock decent business 
men, and the only native Ameri- 
can I know with avowed German 
sympathies says of them: "They 
cannot be true. Nobody would 
do such things/' 



EXAMPLES OF GERMAN 
'' CULTURE " 

Then, we do not like the way 
the Germans have flung away their 
manners. At first they maltreated 
Americans, on the theory that 
they were English, quite abomi- 
nably. I know American ladies 
who were in Dresden two weeks 
after the outbreak of the war. 
They were insulted, arrested as 
Russian spies, and one of them, 
who was perfectly well known to 
a certain tradesman, had her face 

slapped by him. At that time 
46 



GERMAN CULTURE 47 

the population seemed to have 
gone completely daft, and the 
Government made no endeavor to 
restrain them, but, after a few 
weeks, orders from Berlin were 
given, in consequence of which 
Americans everywhere found noth- 
ing too good for them. The treat- 
ment by the German Government 
of the former French and Russian 
Ambassadors when they left Beilin, 
and of the poor old Dowager Em- 
press of Russia, is almost incred- 
ible, and the Germans exhibited 
to them the kind of culture that 
existed in their country in the days 
before Grotius was born. Their 
mouthings about the German Kul- 
tur, which seems to have no rela- 
tion to culture, and their fierce in- 



48 GERMAN ** CULTURE 

dignation about England's having 
induced Japan to take possession 
of the port of Kiao-Chow are not 
unamusing, if one can be amused 
at anything in the midst of the 
horrors of this war. The German 
possession of Kiao-Chow was as 
naked a theft as any of which the 
Germans have ever accused Eng- 
land, and what the Japanese have 
done is simply to copy the ultima- 
tum, in part word for word, which 
the Germans sent to them many 
years ago and send it back to them. 
Why should they get feverish 
about that? 

Finally, it appears to Americans 
that the Germans are carrying on 
this war in a way which is not only 
cruel, but brutal and uncivilized. 



GERMAN '* CULTURE " 49 



The theory that the civil popula- 
tion of a country — like the lame 
shoemaker of Zabern — must be 
terrified into submission is perhaps 
arguable, but it cannot be done 
through the abolition of common, 
human feeling, and in Belgiimi the 
Germans appear to be endeavoring 
to reduce to practice some of the 
Kaiser's speeches which I supposed 
were to be taken as largely rhetori- 
cal, like the Wagnerian talk about 
their golden helms, their shining 
armor, their pure and sacred 
swords, and so on. But not at all. 
The Germans have embarked upon 
a deliberate, calculated, wanton, 
and senseless campaign of destruc- 
tion. In the mailed fist speech the 
Kaiser said: ''Give no quarter; 



50 GERMAN ''CULTURE*' 

make yourself as terrible as did 
the Huns under Attila.'' His 
people are now doing it. I know 
of an American lady who was at 
a hotel in Belgium the evening 
the Germans came in early in 
August. The order was given 
to shut all windows — the ther- 
mometer was ninety degrees — and 
they were told that anyone who 
looked out would be shot. One 
man was shot in that hotel during 
the night, and early the next morn- 
ing twenty-odd people, including 
women and old men, were lined 
up and shot. There are many 
well authenticated reports of simi- 
lar occurrences, and the Figaro on 
September 24th printed a copy of 
a proclamation which L6on Bour- 



GERMAN ''culture" 5 1 



geois, the former Premier, found 
affixed to the walls of Rheims 
Cathedral. The proclamation was 
signed "By Order of the German 
Authorities." It says in part: 

**In order to secure the safety 
of the troops and in order to assure 
calm among the population of 
Rheims, the persons named below 
have been taken as hostages by the 
General in command of the Ger- 
man army and will be shot on the 
least attempt at disorder. In ad- 
dition the town will be entirely 
or partially burned and the in- 
habitants hanged if a single infrac- 
tion of the preceding instructions 
occurs." This is followed by the 
names of a number of prominent 
citizens. 



(( _.,„ n^-TT-rw-n »» 



52 GERMAN CULTURE 

The German Chancellor, on Au- 
gust 14th said: "We expect that 
the sense of justice of the American 
people will enable them to compre- 
hend our situation. We invite 
their opinion as to the one-sided 
English representations, and ask 
them to examine our point of view 
in an unprejudiced way. 

"The sympathy of the American 
nation will then lie with German 
culture and civilization, fighting 
against a half Asiatic and slightly 
cultured barbarism.*' 

We have tried to examine their 
point of view but I, for one, say 
that the way the Germans have 
behaved in Belgiimi is perfectly 
detestable. There are upwards of 
60,000 Belgians in England to-day 



GERMAN *' CULTURE '* 53 

being fed, clothed, and sheltered, 
and the ghastly tales they have to 
tell of the reasons why they are 
broken and penniless fugitives in 
a strange land are making the 
world see red. Poor Belgium! 
Have some of the Kultur soldiers 
been reading Motley so as to learn 
how to visit on the land the Span- 
ish terror? ''War," the Chan- 
cellor may reply, "is, as General 
Sherman said, hell." So it is, 
and it is also damnation to those 
who wage it as Germany is now 
waging it in Belgiimi. Neither 
Sherman nor any other Americans 
ever ordered out a squad of non- 
combatants, of old men, youths, 
and women, to be shot. That is 
defended as a military necessity; 



54 GERMAN "culture'* 



but from our point of view, some 
at least of the German command- 
ants in Belgium, soaked in German 
culture though they be, are blood 
brothers to the Mexican gentlemen 
who are thieves, murderers, and 
patriot generals on alternate days. 
As we remember the burning of the 
library at Louvain, as we read the 
other day Mr. Whitney Warren's 
account of the destruction of 
Rheims Cathedral, which, remem- 
bering the position of that edifice, 
could only have been deliberate, 
we regard the Pan-Slavic peril with 
perfect tranquillity, for we are sure 
it cannot be more odious than the 
Pan-Germanic practice. 

I say nothing of the unspeakable 
outrages and mutilations which 



GERMAN "culture** 55 

are charged. I can conceive that 
the Belgians whom the Germans 
have driven mad, have done out- 
rageous things, but I refuse to 
believe, except on the evidence of 
my own senses, that the offenses 
charged against German troops 
and German officers can be true. 
I suppose on the great accounting 
at the end of the war some of the 
sufferers will still be alive and can 
be produced. Meanwhile, if the 
Germans are disturbed about the 
charges, they ought to be told they 
should not be so childish as to 
offer the testimony of a dozen 
reporters who have been all over 
Belgium and seen nothing, or 
offer to appoint an impartial judge 
to investigate. What they should 



H -^^„ ___„_ if 



56 GERMAN * CULTURE 

do is to get a few judges from the 
neutral countries of the highest 
position and hang everybody those 
judges find guilty of murder, arson, 
mayhem, or rape. 



THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 

Two of the various German 
appeals to America deserve special 
mention. The first, called The 
Truth, reminds me of a saying of 
Lessing's that if the gods held in 
one hand the truth, and in the 
other the pursuit of truth, the wise 
man would say : ' ' Give me the pur- 
suit of truth; the truth is not for 
mortals." I should advise Herr 
Ballin and Prince Billow, and their 
associates, to ponder on this obser- 
vation and instruct their editors 
to get out an expurgated and 

57 



58 THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 

amended edition of their pamphlet 
as soon as possible. What they 
say about neutrality is, however, 
such rubbish that one is constrained 
to say to Mr. Ballin: "You are 
one of the most successful business 
men in the world. Is an obligation 
of the Hamburg-American Steam- 
ship Company signed by you good, 
or is it only a scrap of paper?" — 
and to Prince Biilow: ''You are a 
gentleman. Do you invite us to 
doubt your plighted word?" 

The other appeal by Professors 
Rudolf Eucken and Ernst H. 
Haeckel is a little puzzling, for 
on August 1 8th they say, "On 
England alone falls the monstrous 
guilt and the historical responsi- 
bility," and on the 31st of August 



THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 59 

they declare "nobody but Russia 
is to blame for the outbreak of the 
war." They are of the opinion 
that England *s complaints of the 
violation of international law "are 
the most atrocious hypocrisy and 
the vilest Pharisaism," and their 
language is so lurid that, great 
names though they bear, they 
must be considered as really only 
a couple of peevish old gentlemen 
who have quite lost their tempers. 
There have been other appeals 
to the American people which I 
have not myself seen, but they are 
without avail. It is only natural 
for American citizens who were 
born in Germany, or one of whose 
parents was born in Germany, to 
sympathize with the Fatherland 



60 THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 

because they have not shaken off 
the habits of beHeving what they 
are told to believe, and accepting 
as final that which is ''officially 
stated/' Those habits have led 
to some very curious misapprehen- 
sions in parts of Germany as to 
what is now going on. Hundreds 
of people have returned here from 
Germany within the past six weeks 
who, until they got the New York 
papers at Quarantine, believed 
that all the English ports were 
closed by German mines, that 
there were no English ships coming 
to America, that the people in the 
south of England were starving, 
that Leeds had been destroyed by 
Zeppelin bombs, and that there 
was a rebellion in India. 



THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 6 1 

I have, however, been surprised 
at the number of native Germans 
who say "The Kaiser is dead 
wrong this time/* and who are not 
German sympathizers in this war 
at all. Among the native-born 
Americans the feeling is almost 
wholly in favor of the allies, and 
among the hundreds and even 
thousands of Americans also like 
myself who have lived and studied 
in Germany, I believe the fact to 
be that the overwhelming majority 
now think of the Fatherland as 
they would think of an old friend 
who had gone out of his mind. We 
believe the Germans to be crazed 
by militarism and the contempla- 
tion of their own greatness and 
power. We believe Germany, 



62 THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 

great and powerful nation that it 
is, with an army and perfection 
of organization which give many 
people a sense of awe as of some- 
thing superhuman, is suffering 
from some fatal delusions as to its 
position in the world, as to what 
the world thinks of Germany, and 
as to what will be the results of its 
present great adventure. Power, 
the Germans hold, is the essence 
of the state; nothing should re- 
strain its exercise in the interests 
of the state; and through it alone 
the state expresses its will; individ- 
ualism is submerged in the state. 
They have almost created a re- 
ligion of power and valor, and 
Christianity is openly proclaimed 
to be a worn-out creed. 



THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 63 

These theories explain much if 
not everything which has thus far 
taken place during the war. But 
much has occurred which can be 
accounted for only upon entirely 
different theories of life and con- 
duct. How can Germany from 
its own standpoint account for the 
Belgian refusal of its pieces of 
silver, or for the defense by the 
Belgians of their homes and their 
individuality until they have won 
a place in the world's history 
beside the Greek heroes who died 
at Thermopylae? How can Ger- 
many account for the British Em- 
pire itself? There are in India 
270,000,000 people governed by less 
than eight hundred white men with 
an insignificant army. Canada, 



64 THE APPEALS TO AMERICA 

Australia, and New Zealand and 
the islands all over the globe are 
bound to Great Britain by little 
more than a flag and a language, 
and yet they have begun to pour 
forth money and men to fight 
against the extension of German 
Kultur, and promise as much and 
as many more as are necessary to 
prevent a final German victory. 



GERMANY AND COLONIAL 
EMPIRE 

The most dangerous of the de- 
lusions, under which, as I view it, 
Germany is now laboring, is about 
colonies and a colonial empire. 
The loudly increasing cry in Ger- 
many for the past few years that 
she must have a place under the 
sun, which I at first thought meant 
we must allow without demur the 
individual German to steal our 
seats in the railway carriages and 
hustle and crowd our daughters 
away from their places in foreign 

$' 65 



66 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

galleries, really means that Ger- 
many must have great colonies 
which can relieve the pressure of 
her population and where the 
emigrants can still remain German 
and find, as Bernhardi says, a 
German way of living. Had it 
been written in the Book of Fate 
that the Germans were to be a 
colonial power, they would have 
had their colonies long ago — that 
is, the Germans would have gone 
out into the waste places in the 
world, settled and improved them, 
and the flag of the Fatherland 
would have followed them. This 
they did not do, and now that the 
earth is fully occupied, the only 
way in which she can get this par- 
ticular place under the sim is by 



COLONIAL EMPIRE 67 

somehow or other getting posses- 
sion of what belongs to somebody 
else. Conquest is an intelligible 
way to go about it and is appar- 
ently one of the purposes of the 
present enterprise, but the German 
Government has apparently had 
other ways in mind. The German 
interests in Morocco for instance 
were few and unimportant, yet, a 
short time ago, if Professor Usher 
is correct, the German Govern- 
ment endeavored to get into that 
country through agents provoca- 
teurs in a way which was as 
crooked and foolish, as Admiral 
Diedrich's performances in Manila 
Bay were stupid.' 

Let us suppose, however, the 

^ Usher: Pan-Germanism, pp. 17-18. 



68 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

Germans had their colonies. I 
consider that the German theory 
of government by force and the 
consequent German theory of regu- 
lating everything public and pri- 
vate — I have known a German 
policeman to stop a young Ameri- 
can from whistling quietly on the 
street — are incompatible with the 
elasticity and tact essential in col- 
onial administration, and, so far as 
one can judge, the Germans would 
be sure to make a mess of their 
colonies. The filthy scandals of 
Dr. Carl Peters and the expense 
and troubles of the Herero War 
are not forgotten, and I remember 
that when Germany got one of 
the Samoan Islands there was the 
greatest difficulty in getting the 



COLONIAL EMPIRE 69 

Samoans, who were oiling them- 
selves in the sun, to understand 
that when a German officer ap- 
peared they must stand up and 
salute. 

The main difficulty, however, 
with the German colonies would 
be the Germans themselves. When 
they go out into the great world 
they do not want, as Bernhardi 
says, to find a German way of 
living, but they want to find a 
better way. I heard recently from 
a friend of a case in point. He 
met a German merchant in one of 
the towns of British South Africa 
and said to him, ''What are you 
doing here? I should think you 
would be at such and such a 
place" — the capital town of the 



70 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

nearest German colony. The 
German replied: '*I went there, 
and when I got out at the station 
there was a German sentry with a 
gun. When I went to the Com- 
missioner's house there was an- 
other sentry with a gun. After 
I got into the house, there was a 
large room all full of German red 
tape. So I got away and came here, 
where I have done very well.** 

The fact seems to be that the 
Prussian discipline which has been 
so exalted has done its work and 
has overdone it — there are three 
suicides in Berlin to one in London. 
When a German escapes from 
under that discipline he never 
again subjects himself to its thralls, 
and one of the most curious things 



COLONIAL EMPIRE 7 1 

to be noted in a general survey of 
the world is that among all the 
millions of Germans who have 
left the Fatherland since 1848 for 
this country so very few of them 
ever go back to Germany. It is 
not only that they better them- 
selves materially, but they get a 
taste for the sort of freedom they 
never got at home. A good many 
German mercenaries, who enlisted 
here during the Civil War for the 
sake of the high bounties we paid 
for recruits, went back and are 
living on their pensions, and a few 
international bankers who never 
struck root here have gone back, 
but in a large acquaintance I have 
heard of only one instance where a 
German who had prospered re- 



72 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

turned to pass his old age at home. 
That was the case of a brewer who 
had made a few hundred thousand 
dollars and then built for himself 
a house in the German district 
whence he had emigrated, such as 
his boyhood's fancy had pictured 
he would have in his old age, and 
into that house he moved to end 
his days. At the end of two 
months he locked the front door, 
and said, ''By God! I can't stand 
it another minute, " — and came 
back to his place in the Middle 
West. He did not like what he 
thought was the continual inter- 
ference and meddling in his private 
affairs. 

Many years ago I was concerned 
in the establishment in this city 



COLONIAL EMPIRE 73 

of a system of free circulating 
libraries, and one evening the 
late Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, the 
founder and owner of the Staats- 
Zeitung in this city sent for me 
and two of my associates and said 
he had been interested in our work, 
and proposed to give us a library, 
and stock it with German books. 
He went on to say: ''I intend to 
attach to this gift one condition. 
I do not deceive myself about my 
people at all. I am a German, 
and as long as there is German 
immigration into this country there 
will be a German element here, but 
as immigration ceases the Ger- 
man element will pass away. The 
Germans forget their language, 
do not keep up their ties with 



74 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

the old country, and in time they 
will as a distinct element cease to 
exist. I hope we shall contribute 
to the ultimate American some 
qualities of thoroughness, honesty, 
and good citizenship, but as an 
element we shall cease to be. And 
the condition which I have at- 
tached to this gift is that a large 
vault I have placed in the cellar 
shall be maintained as a place 
where the records of the German 
societies as they gradually die 
shall be preserved/* That li- 
brary has long since been amalga- 
mated with the great public 
library of New York. The vault 
is maintained, and I believe the 
records of one or two German 
societies are already in it. 



COLONIAL EMPIRE 75 

Mr. Ottendorfer was right. The 
Germans in America are among the 
best, sanest, and most valuable of 
our citizens, but the Germans are 
of all people the least tenacious of 
their nationality. In this country 
the EngHsh, Scotch, and even the 
Irish speak of *'home" for genera- 
tions. The Scandinavians charter 
ships to go ''home" to spend their 
Christmas; numbers of them who 
prosper go back to pass their old 
age. The Slavs go back by thou- 
sands, and have carried the EngHsh 
language with them, so much so 
that in one case an election for the 
Reichsrath in Austria was con- 
ducted in that language.^ The 
Italians go back by tens of thou- 

» Steiner. 



76 COLONIAL EMPIRE 

sands and you can hardly find a 
town in Italy in which someone is 
not living in a little vineyard or 
villino who made his money in 
America. But, as I have said, the 
Germans practically never go back. 
They become Americans, just as 
they became Australians in Aus- 
tralia, where they are now support- 
ing their new country against the 
old, or they become Brazilians, 
Chilians, Central Americans, even 
Haitians, and their chocolate col- 
ored children are outside the Ger- 
man culture entirely. 



AMERICA'S REPLY TO THE 
APPEALS 

Herr Ballin's and Prince Bu- 
low's editors, in their version of 
The Truth, cry out, ''Listen, all ye 
people." Perhaps I may reply 
to them: Listen again. You have 
guns the like of which have never 
been seen on land or sea, but you 
can not hold the hearts of your 
people. They want something 
larger than you can give them. 
Yoiu- ultimate design to confer 
"peace, enlightenment, and pros- 
perity*' upon the rest of the world, 
77 



78 America's reply to appeals 

the world will not have. You are 
unanimous to-day and splendid in 
your futile endeavors to realize 
your ideals, but General Nogi, the 
conqueror of Port Arthur, is re- 
ported to have said: "I foresee two 
more wars, one of which will be 
fought out on the plains of Belgium 
and will leave Germany so beaten 
and terrified that there will not be 
another war for a hundred years 
and perhaps never. ' ' Listen again 
to the prayers of more millions 
than you can ever hope to be, that 
such may be the result of this war, 
and renounce your false gods, 
mind your own great business, 
give us back the Germany of 
Luther, Beethoven, Goethe, Schil- 
ler, and Kant, and try to recognize 



AMERICA S REPLY TO APPEALS 79 

that your function on this earth 
is not to own it, but is to fertilize 
other peoples — as you have been 
doing for a thousand years. 



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